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Thursday, August 24, 2017

More than 6 million readers have already fallen in love with
the Sullivans! Now get ready to meet your new favorite family in Bella Andre's
New York Times and USA Today bestselling contemporary romances with the first
three books in the #1 hit series.

"Not since Nora Roberts has anyone been able to write a big family romance
series with every book as good as the last! Bella Andre never
disappoints!" Revolving Bookcase Reviews

THE LOOK OF LOVE

Chloe Peterson is having a bad night. A really bad night. The large bruise on
her cheek can attest to that. And when her car skids off the side of a wet
country road straight into a ditch, she's convinced even the gorgeous guy who
rescues her in the middle of the rain storm must be too good to be true. Or is
he?

As a successful photographer who frequently travels around the world, Chase
Sullivan has his pick of beautiful women, and whenever he's home in San
Francisco, one of his seven siblings is usually up for causing a little fun
trouble. Chase thinks his life is great just as it is--until the night he finds
Chloe and her totaled car on the side of the road in Napa
Valley. Not only has he never met
anyone so lovely, both inside and out, but he quickly realizes she has much
bigger problems than her damaged car. Soon, he is willing to move mountains to
love--and protect--her, but will she let him?

FROM THIS MOMENT ON

For thirty-six years, Marcus Sullivan has been the responsible older brother,
stepping in to take care of his seven siblings after their father died when
they were children. But when the perfectly ordered future he's planned for
himself turns out to be nothing but a lie, Marcus needs one reckless night to
shake free from it all.

Nicola Harding is known throughout the world by only one name - Nico - for her
catchy, sensual pop songs. Only, what no one knows about the twenty-five year
old singer is that her sex-kitten image is totally false. After a terrible
betrayal by a man who loved fame far more than he ever loved her, she vows not
to let anyone else get close enough to find out who she really is...or hurt her
again. Especially not the gorgeous stranger she meets at a nightclub, even
though the hunger - and the sinful promises - in his dark eyes make her want to
spill all her secrets.

CAN’T HELP FALLING IN LOVE

Gabe Sullivan risks his life every day as a firefighter in San
Francisco. But after learning a brutal lesson about
professional boundaries, he knows better than to risk his heart to his fire
victims ever again. Especially the brave mother and daughter he saved from a
deadly apartment fire...and can't stop thinking about.

Megan Harris knows she owes the heroic firefighter everything for running into
a burning building to save her and her seven-year-old daughter. Everything
except her heart. Because after losing her navy pilot husband five years ago,
she has vowed to never suffer through loving - and losing - a man with a
dangerous job again.

ORDER THE SULLIVANS BOXED SET:

Chase almost missed the flickering light off
on the right side of the two-lane country road. In the past thirty minutes, he
hadn’t passed a single car, because on a night like this, most sane
Californians—who didn’t know the first thing about driving safely in inclement
weather—stayed home.

Knowing better than to slam on the brakes—he
wouldn’t be able to help whomever was stranded on the side of the road if he
ended up stuck in the muddy ditch right next to them—Chase slowed down enough
to see that there was definitely a vehicle stuck in the ditch.

He turned his brights on to see better in the
pouring rain and realized there was a person walking along the edge of the road
about a hundred yards up ahead. Obviously hearing his car approach, she turned
to face him and he could see her long wet hair whipping around her shoulders in
his headlights.

Wondering why she wasn’t just sitting in her
car, dry and warm, calling Triple A and waiting for them to come save her, he
pulled over to the edge of his lane and got out to try and help her. She was
shivering as she watched him approach.

"Are you hurt?"

She covered her cheek with one hand, but
shook her head. "No."

He had to move closer to hear her over the
sound of the water hitting the pavement in what were rapidly becoming
hailstones. Even though he’d turned his headlights off, as his eyes quickly
adjusted to the darkness, he was able to get a better look at her face.

Something inside of Chase’s chest clenched
tight.

Despite the long, dark hair plastered to her
head and chest, regardless of the fact that looking
like a drowned rat wasn’t too far off the descriptive mark, her beauty
stunned him.

In an instant, his photographer’s eye
cataloged her features. Her mouth was a little too big, her eyes a little too
wide-set on her face. She wasn’t even close to model thin, but given the way
her T-shirt and jeans stuck to her skin, he could see that she wore her lush
curves well. In the dark he couldn’t judge the exact color of her hair, but it
looked like silk, perfectly smooth and straight where it lay over her breasts.

It wasn’t until Chase heard her say, "My
car is definitely hurt, though," that he realized he had completely lost
the thread of what he’d come out here to do.

Knowing he’d been drinking her in like he was
dying of thirst, he worked to recover his balance. He could already see he’d
been right about her car. It didn’t take a mechanic like his brother, Zach, who
owned an auto shop—more like forty, but Chase had stopped counting years ago—to
see that her shitty hatchback was borderline totaled. Even if the front bumper
wasn’t half smashed to pieces by the white farm fence she’d slid into, her bald
tires weren’t going to get any traction on the mud. Not tonight, anyway.

If her car had been in a less precarious
situation, he probably would have sent her to hang outin her car while he took care of getting it
unstuck. But one of her back tires was hanging precariously over the edge of
the ditch.

He jerked his thumb over his shoulder.
"Get in my car. We can wait there for a tow truck." He was vaguely
aware of his words coming out like an order, but the hail was starting to
sting, damn it. Both of them needed to get out of the rain before they froze.

But the woman didn’t move. Instead, she gave
him a look that said he was a complete and utter nut-job.

"I’m not getting into your car."

Realizing just how frightening it must be for
a lone woman to end up stuck and alone in the middle of a dark road, Chase took
a step back from her. He had to speak loudly enough for her to hear him over
the hail.

"I’m not going to attack you. I swear I
won’t do anything to hurt you."

She all but flinched at the word attack and Chase’s radar started
buzzing. He’d never been a magnet for troubled women, wasn’t the kind of guy
who thrived on fixing wounded birds. But living with two sisters for so many
years meant he could always tell when something was up.

And something was definitely up with this
woman, beyond the fact that her car was half-stuck in a muddy ditch.

Wanting to make her feel safe, he held his
hands up. "I swear on my father’s grave, I’m not going to hurt you. It’s
okay to get into my car." When she didn’t immediately say no again, he
pressed his advantage with, "I just want to help you." And he did.
More than it made sense to want to help a stranger. "Please," he
said. "Let me help you."

She stared at him for a long moment, hail
hammering between them, around them, onto them. Chase found himself holding his
breath, waiting for her decision. It shouldn’t matter to him what she decided.

Bella Andre is the New York Times, USA Today and Publishers Weekly
bestselling author of “The Sullivans”, “The Maverick Billionaires”, “The
Morrisons”, and the NYT bestselling “Four Weddings and a Fiasco” sweet romance
series written as Lucy Kevin.

Having sold more than 6 million books, Bella Andre’s novels have been #1
bestsellers around the world and have appeared on the New York Times and USA
Today bestseller lists 32 times. She has been the #1 Ranked Author at Amazon
(on a top 10 list that included Nora Roberts, JK Rowling, James Patterson and
Steven King), and Publishers Weekly named Oak Press (the publishing company she
created to publish her own books) the Fastest-Growing Independent Publisher in
the US. After signing a groundbreaking 7-figure print-only deal with Harlequin
MIRA, Bella’s “The Sullivans” series is being released in paperback in the US,
Canada, and Australia.

Known for “sensual, empowered stories enveloped in heady romance”
(Publishers Weekly), her books have been Cosmopolitan Magazine “Red Hot Reads”
twice and have been translated into ten languages. Winner of the Award of
Excellence, The Washington Post called her “One of the top writers in America”
and she has been featured by Entertainment Weekly, NPR,
USA Today, Forbes, The
Wall Street Journal, and TIME Magazine. A graduate of Stanford University, she
has given keynote speeches at publishing conferences from Copenhagen to Berlin
to San Francisco, including a standing-room-only keynote at Book Expo America
in New York City.

If not behind her computer, you can find her reading her favorite authors,
hiking, swimming or laughing. Married with two children, Bella splits her time
between the Northern California wine country and a 100
year old log cabin in the Adirondacks.

More than 6 million readers have already fallen in love with
the Sullivans! Now get ready to meet your new favorite family in Bella Andre's
New York Times and USA Today bestselling contemporary romances with the first
three books in the #1 hit series.

"Not since Nora Roberts has anyone been able to write a big family romance
series with every book as good as the last! Bella Andre never
disappoints!" Revolving Bookcase Reviews

THE LOOK OF LOVE

Chloe Peterson is having a bad night. A really bad night. The large bruise on
her cheek can attest to that. And when her car skids off the side of a wet
country road straight into a ditch, she's convinced even the gorgeous guy who
rescues her in the middle of the rain storm must be too good to be true. Or is
he?

As a successful photographer who frequently travels around the world, Chase
Sullivan has his pick of beautiful women, and whenever he's home in San
Francisco, one of his seven siblings is usually up for causing a little fun
trouble. Chase thinks his life is great just as it is--until the night he finds
Chloe and her totaled car on the side of the road in Napa
Valley. Not only has he never met
anyone so lovely, both inside and out, but he quickly realizes she has much
bigger problems than her damaged car. Soon, he is willing to move mountains to
love--and protect--her, but will she let him?

FROM THIS MOMENT ON

For thirty-six years, Marcus Sullivan has been the responsible older brother,
stepping in to take care of his seven siblings after their father died when
they were children. But when the perfectly ordered future he's planned for
himself turns out to be nothing but a lie, Marcus needs one reckless night to
shake free from it all.

Nicola Harding is known throughout the world by only one name - Nico - for her
catchy, sensual pop songs. Only, what no one knows about the twenty-five year
old singer is that her sex-kitten image is totally false. After a terrible
betrayal by a man who loved fame far more than he ever loved her, she vows not
to let anyone else get close enough to find out who she really is...or hurt her
again. Especially not the gorgeous stranger she meets at a nightclub, even
though the hunger - and the sinful promises - in his dark eyes make her want to
spill all her secrets.

CAN’T HELP FALLING IN LOVE

Gabe Sullivan risks his life every day as a firefighter in San
Francisco. But after learning a brutal lesson about
professional boundaries, he knows better than to risk his heart to his fire
victims ever again. Especially the brave mother and daughter he saved from a
deadly apartment fire...and can't stop thinking about.

Megan Harris knows she owes the heroic firefighter everything for running into
a burning building to save her and her seven-year-old daughter. Everything
except her heart. Because after losing her navy pilot husband five years ago,
she has vowed to never suffer through loving - and losing - a man with a
dangerous job again.

ORDER THE SULLIVANS BOXED SET:

Chase almost missed the flickering light off
on the right side of the two-lane country road. In the past thirty minutes, he
hadn’t passed a single car, because on a night like this, most sane
Californians—who didn’t know the first thing about driving safely in inclement
weather—stayed home.

Knowing better than to slam on the brakes—he
wouldn’t be able to help whomever was stranded on the side of the road if he
ended up stuck in the muddy ditch right next to them—Chase slowed down enough
to see that there was definitely a vehicle stuck in the ditch.

He turned his brights on to see better in the
pouring rain and realized there was a person walking along the edge of the road
about a hundred yards up ahead. Obviously hearing his car approach, she turned
to face him and he could see her long wet hair whipping around her shoulders in
his headlights.

Wondering why she wasn’t just sitting in her
car, dry and warm, calling Triple A and waiting for them to come save her, he
pulled over to the edge of his lane and got out to try and help her. She was
shivering as she watched him approach.

"Are you hurt?"

She covered her cheek with one hand, but
shook her head. "No."

He had to move closer to hear her over the
sound of the water hitting the pavement in what were rapidly becoming
hailstones. Even though he’d turned his headlights off, as his eyes quickly
adjusted to the darkness, he was able to get a better look at her face.

Something inside of Chase’s chest clenched
tight.

Despite the long, dark hair plastered to her
head and chest, regardless of the fact that looking
like a drowned rat wasn’t too far off the descriptive mark, her beauty
stunned him.

In an instant, his photographer’s eye
cataloged her features. Her mouth was a little too big, her eyes a little too
wide-set on her face. She wasn’t even close to model thin, but given the way
her T-shirt and jeans stuck to her skin, he could see that she wore her lush
curves well. In the dark he couldn’t judge the exact color of her hair, but it
looked like silk, perfectly smooth and straight where it lay over her breasts.

It wasn’t until Chase heard her say, "My
car is definitely hurt, though," that he realized he had completely lost
the thread of what he’d come out here to do.

Knowing he’d been drinking her in like he was
dying of thirst, he worked to recover his balance. He could already see he’d
been right about her car. It didn’t take a mechanic like his brother, Zach, who
owned an auto shop—more like forty, but Chase had stopped counting years ago—to
see that her shitty hatchback was borderline totaled. Even if the front bumper
wasn’t half smashed to pieces by the white farm fence she’d slid into, her bald
tires weren’t going to get any traction on the mud. Not tonight, anyway.

If her car had been in a less precarious
situation, he probably would have sent her to hang outin her car while he took care of getting it
unstuck. But one of her back tires was hanging precariously over the edge of
the ditch.

He jerked his thumb over his shoulder.
"Get in my car. We can wait there for a tow truck." He was vaguely
aware of his words coming out like an order, but the hail was starting to
sting, damn it. Both of them needed to get out of the rain before they froze.

But the woman didn’t move. Instead, she gave
him a look that said he was a complete and utter nut-job.

"I’m not getting into your car."

Realizing just how frightening it must be for
a lone woman to end up stuck and alone in the middle of a dark road, Chase took
a step back from her. He had to speak loudly enough for her to hear him over
the hail.

"I’m not going to attack you. I swear I
won’t do anything to hurt you."

She all but flinched at the word attack and Chase’s radar started
buzzing. He’d never been a magnet for troubled women, wasn’t the kind of guy
who thrived on fixing wounded birds. But living with two sisters for so many
years meant he could always tell when something was up.

And something was definitely up with this
woman, beyond the fact that her car was half-stuck in a muddy ditch.

Wanting to make her feel safe, he held his
hands up. "I swear on my father’s grave, I’m not going to hurt you. It’s
okay to get into my car." When she didn’t immediately say no again, he
pressed his advantage with, "I just want to help you." And he did.
More than it made sense to want to help a stranger. "Please," he
said. "Let me help you."

She stared at him for a long moment, hail
hammering between them, around them, onto them. Chase found himself holding his
breath, waiting for her decision. It shouldn’t matter to him what she decided.

Bella Andre is the New York Times, USA Today and Publishers Weekly
bestselling author of “The Sullivans”, “The Maverick Billionaires”, “The
Morrisons”, and the NYT bestselling “Four Weddings and a Fiasco” sweet romance
series written as Lucy Kevin.

Having sold more than 6 million books, Bella Andre’s novels have been #1
bestsellers around the world and have appeared on the New York Times and USA
Today bestseller lists 32 times. She has been the #1 Ranked Author at Amazon
(on a top 10 list that included Nora Roberts, JK Rowling, James Patterson and
Steven King), and Publishers Weekly named Oak Press (the publishing company she
created to publish her own books) the Fastest-Growing Independent Publisher in
the US. After signing a groundbreaking 7-figure print-only deal with Harlequin
MIRA, Bella’s “The Sullivans” series is being released in paperback in the US,
Canada, and Australia.

Known for “sensual, empowered stories enveloped in heady romance”
(Publishers Weekly), her books have been Cosmopolitan Magazine “Red Hot Reads”
twice and have been translated into ten languages. Winner of the Award of
Excellence, The Washington Post called her “One of the top writers in America”
and she has been featured by Entertainment Weekly, NPR,
USA Today, Forbes, The
Wall Street Journal, and TIME Magazine. A graduate of Stanford University, she
has given keynote speeches at publishing conferences from Copenhagen to Berlin
to San Francisco, including a standing-room-only keynote at Book Expo America
in New York City.

If not behind her computer, you can find her reading her favorite authors,
hiking, swimming or laughing. Married with two children, Bella splits her time
between the Northern California wine country and a 100
year old log cabin in the Adirondacks.

Leah Watton’s
practical joke has spiralled way out of control—all to impress a crush…

With a prank online video, Leah hopes to catch the attention of Jake Colton, a
cute, blond-haired, blue-eyed co-worker she’s had a crush on for months. But
instead of sending it to Jake, she manages to forward the clip to her boss—who
buys every gory second.

When mass panic ensues, Leah learns the video is more than a staged act…

The government is calling the virus AM13. As the outbreak spreads, citizens are
forced to stay indoors while they assess the gravity of the illness. Most
people are quarantined in their homes, but Leah, Jake, and Leah’s best friend
Michelle are some of the unlucky few who are stuck at work when the Lockdown
occurs.

That’s where she first encounters one of the infected…

Aside from a contaminated woman devouring one of her co-workers, Leah has
another problem. Does she do as she’s ordered and stay at work? Or should she
disobey government orders and break free to reunite with her family?

She can’t go it alone—after all, Leah has none of the skills needed to
survive—but with Michelle and Jake by her side, not even a contagious virus and
a sea of the dead can keep her from…

He’s disgusting. I’ve never seen one this close
before, heading towards me with such vigour. I’ve always done my best to avert
my eyes from the infected, but now time seems to freeze as I can’t drag my gaze
away. What I thought was him shuffling, was actually him dragging his broken,
bloodied leg behind him. This wound is so deep I can see bone poking through. I
can’t help but retch.

The bite on his shoulder is absolutely huge and
rancid—all blackened from the infection. His arm is hanging down by his side,
completely useless. He’ll never be able to move that again, no matter what
happens. His face is also in a terrible state. His skin is a deep grey, much
murkier than the others I’ve seen. He must have been infected for a very long
time. The bags under his eyes droop incredibly low, causing his face to look
deformed. The blood running down his skin, staining all his clothes, looks
really old. Scratch marks cover his torso; he looks as if he’s been brutally
beaten in some awful fight. I would never
have thought someone could survive these injuries, they’re just so severe.
People have died over much less, and yet here he is, still moving towards us,
baring his teeth, ready and waiting to eat.

Jake pulls me hard and I stumble backwards, tripping
over a box. I hit the ground hard and suddenly find myself unable to move, as
if I’m physically paralysed by fear. It’s almost as if I’m having an out of
body experience, looking down at myself, screaming run. Something is
pulling me upwards, but my body is too sluggish to comply. It just won’t do
what I want it to, I’m too panicked. Now I understand how Tim was feeling when
he was attacked and unable to scale the fence. Limp and useless. I know an
assault is imminent, but I can’t do anything to stop it. I’m utterly screwed,
and I’m just sitting here, waiting for it to happen.

I’m shaking, sobs rising up in my chest. I’m going to
die if I don’t get up now, so why can’t I? All I need to do is make my way over
to the door, but it feels a million miles away. I don’t even know where Jake
is. I can hear him hissing at me, encouraging me to move, but I can’t see him
anywhere. He might have even made it outside already. If so, he should probably
run before he has to witness my death.

Thud. The
loud noise shocks me into looking up. Thud.
There it is again. This time it’s following by a sloshing sound, like a wet mop
hitting the ground. I need to locate the source of the noise. I need to know
what’s happening, how long I have left. Can I escape? Can I really survive
this? My heart leaps into my dry, panicked mouth and my slick palms slide
across the ground.

It’s Jake, I can finally see him. He’s absolutely
covered in blood. His axe is discarded on the ground next to him. He’s offering
me a hand. I reach up tentatively to grab it, still trying to piece together
the scene around me.

“He’s…?”I can’t finish my sentence. I can’t vocalise
all the hundreds of questions that are swirling around in my mind.

“Yes, Leah, he’s gone. ”Jake blows out some air, as
if all the stress is seeping out of his body.

Relief floods my chest, pushing away some of the numb
sensation. I’ve never had a near death experience before, so I’m not sure how
you’re supposed to feel. We sit silent for a while, just the sounds of our heavy
breathing to keep us company. The shop owner doesn’t move again, so I can feel
myself starting to relax in his presence. I wonder what happened to him, how he
managed to get into that state, when he got bitten—all of these questions that
we’ll never get the answer to now that he’s gone forever.

Monday, August 21, 2017

A bewitching love
story that is also an extraordinary portrait of Jerusalem, its faith, spirituality, identity, and
kaleidoscope of clashing beliefs, Night in Jerusalem is a novel of mystery, beauty, historical
insight, and sexual passion.

David Bennett is
invited to Jerusalem in 1967 by his
cousin who, to the alarm of his aristocratic British family, has embraced
Judaism. He introduces David to his mentor, Reb Eli, a revered sage in the
orthodox community. Despite his resistance to religious teaching, David becomes
enthralled by the rabbi’s wisdom and compassionate presence. When David
discloses a sexual problem, Reb Eli unwittingly sets off a chain of events that
transforms his life and the life of the mysterious prostitute, Tamar, who, in a
reprise of an ancient biblical story, leads both men to an astonishing
realization. As passions rise, the Six Day War erupts, reshaping the lives of
everyone caught up in it.

ORDER YOUR COPY:

David lay awake thinking about Anat. He was intimidated by
her sexuality, but also fascinated by her free spirit and daunting intelligence.
He had never met anyone like her. He wondered if Jonathan and the others knew
she preferred women lovers, and why she had confided in him. He became anxious,
thinking perhaps she sensed he had sexual issues and was someone she could
easily manipulate.

Earlier, out on the roof, he had asked her why she preferred
women. She had answered simply, “For the same reasons you do,” then adding, “I
find women more interesting intellectually, as well as sexually.”

Her directness was equal parts frightening and exciting. He
wanted to know her better. Perhaps, with her, he could get over his sexual
problem. The truth was, he desired her as much as he found her intimidating.

Gaelle Lehrer Kennedy worked as an actress and writer in
film and television in the United States
and Israel. Night
in Jerusalemis her debut
novel, which she has adapted to film. She lives in Ojai California
with her husband and daughter.

She writes, “I lived in Israel
in the 1960s, a naive twenty-year-old, hoping to find myself and my place in
the world. The possibility of war was remote to me. I imagined the tensions in
the region would somehow be resolved peacefully. Then, the Six Day War erupted
and I experienced it firsthand in Jerusalem.

I have drawn Night in Jerusalem
from my experiences during that time. The historical events portrayed in the
novel are accurate. The characters are based on people I knew in the city. Like
me, they were struggling to make sense of their lives, responding to inherited
challenges they could not escape that shaped their destiny in ways they and the
entire Middle East could not have imagined.

I have always been intrigued by the miraculous. How and
where the soul’s journey leads and how it reveals its destiny. How two people
who are destined, even under the threat of war and extinction, can find one
another.

Israel’s
Six Day War is not a fiction; neither was the miracle of its victory. What
better time to discover love through intrigue, passion, and the miraculous.

Writing this story was in part reliving my history in Israel,
in part a mystical adventure. I am grateful that so many who have read Night In
Jerusalem have experienced this as well.”

ORDER YOUR COPY:

It’s not long before I am there again. Haugh
Road, right in the middle. Everything looks the
same, right down to the chewing gum on the pavements. There’s the old off-
licence, the pub I used to drink in. There’s the phone box I’d call my mates
from, out the front of the house I called home for thirty years.

My heart feels a hot stab at seeing it, worse than I
expected. Home.

It’s a terraced house that could do with some work.
The lawn is a bit longer than Dad used to have it, by quite a bit, actually,
and the PVC window frames we had put in on a government grant to promote
greener living a few years ago are a bit mucky. The door is still painted red,
with a brass knocker.

What are you doing here, Ben? Are you going to
invite yourself in for a cuppa? Or stand out here like a stalker?

I hadn’t really thought that far ahead. But somehow,
I needed to see it. I needed to see something concrete, to remind me where I
came from... Christ, this fucking neediness... I don’t like it.

I feel abandoned by them, for sure, but they had
their reasons. They were so proud, and suddenly all that pride was gone.

And now, with my visit this evening? I suppose I just
need to know that, even though everything else is chaos, things back here at
home remain the same. We wouldn’t even need to talk, just...

In fact, despite the curtains being open, it doesn’t
look like they are home.

Wait. I can see in through the front window, despite
the dwindling light. Something’s different: On the left-hand side, Grandma’s
mirror is missing, the one passed down to Mum when she died. It had a gold
frame – well, gold edging on top of tin – and it was Mum’s pride and joy. And
the curtains that are open... there are no curtains. Looking closer I
can see the tie-back hooks stand visible and empty.

I walk up the path, leaving prints in the long grass,
and peer inside, and more and more of my past looms up in front of me the
closer I get. But this nostalgia, and the stir of anticipation that has arisen
despite my efforts to subdue it, is quickly replaced by something cold,
something bitter.

The room is empty.

I can see through to the kitchen along the old carpet
that runs right through the downstairs, which in the emptiness now looks more
threadbare. There’s nothing.

They’ve gone. My parents have left here.

I stand simply staring into the hollow space, and
feel as if I’m gazing into the very emptiness that has been abruptly carved
inside of me. My feeling of loneliness is complete.

I have no way to contact them. They are gone, and
from the look of things, gone for good. And considering that they never sent me
a forwarding address while I was in prison, they clearly don’t want me to know
where they are.

All I wanted was to see that they were ok, but as far
as I can tell, they didn’t even want me to have that. They have disowned me. I
should have guessed from their passive stares in the public gallery at my
trial, fixing on any point but their own son’s searching gaze. I can’t help but
stand and dwell.

I quickly decide that I’ve had enough. I walk away
because there’s nothing for me here anymore, not for the first time. Rawmarsh
is no longer my home. I feel I could cry, but I won’t. No chance – those
bastards, they won’t get that from me.

I walk down the path to the scuffed, mucky pavement.
The gum on the concrete beneath my shoes, some of it is undoubtedly mine. My
DNA lies at my feet, inseparable from my town, my past. That DNA is now the
only evidence I was ever here. Thirty years of love, life, family – all reduced
to a dirty bit of gum on an old pavement.

This will steel me. Toughen me. It has to. Because
this would, could, should break a lesser man.

Robert Parker is a new exciting
voice, a married father of two, who lives in a village close to Manchester, UK. He has both a law degree and a degree in film and media
production, and has worked in numerous employment positions, ranging from
solicitor’s agent (essentially a courtroom gun for hire), to a van driver, to a
warehouse order picker, to a commercial video director. He currently
writes full time, while also making time to encourage new young readers and
authors through readings and workshops at local schools and bookstores. In his
spare time he adores pretty much all sport, boxing regularly for charity, loves
fiction across all mediums, and his glass is always half full.

Thursday, August 17, 2017

Kyle
Broder has achieved his lifelong dream and is an editor at a major publishing
house.

When
Kyle is contacted by his favorite college professor, William Lansing, Kyle
couldn’t be happier. Kyle has his mentor over for dinner to catch up and
introduce him to his girlfriend, Jamie, and the three have a great time. When
William mentions that he’s been writing a novel, Kyle is overjoyed. He would
love to read the opus his mentor has toiled over.

Until
the novel turns out to be not only horribly written, but the most depraved
story Kyle has read.

After
Kyle politely rejects the novel, William becomes obsessed, causing trouble
between Kyle and Jamie, threatening Kyle’s career, and even his life. As Kyle
delves into more of this psychopath’s work, it begins to resemble a cold case
from his college town, when a girl went missing. William’s work is looking
increasingly like a true crime confession.

Lee
Matthew Goldberg's The Mentor is a twisty, nail-biting thriller that
explores how the love of words can lead to a deadly obsession with the fate of
all those connected and hanging in the balance.

PRAISE FOR THE MENTOR:

From Booklist - A junior editor at a Manhattan publisher reunites with
his college mentor with disastrous results in Goldberg's second thriller (after
Slow Down, 2015). Kyle Broder has just acquired a probable best-seller
for Burke &amp; Burke publishing when he hears from his former literature
professor, William Lansing, who pitches the still-unfinished opus he’s been
working on for 10 years. Lansing’s book is not only badly
written, it’s also disturbing, featuring a narrator literally eating the heart
of the woman he loves. Lansing turns vengeful when his
"masterpiece" is rejected, but Broder’s concerns about his mentor are
dismissed both at home and at work: Broder’s girlfriend considers Lansing charming, and a rival
editor feigns interest in Lansing’s book. Broder revisits
his college and delves more deeply into the cold case of a missing
ex-girlfriend, and as the plot darkens and spirals downward, it’s unclear who
will be left standing. The compelling plot is likely to carry readers with a
high enough tolerance for gore to the final twist at the end.

ORDER YOUR COPY:

FROM FAR AWAY the trees at Bentley
College appeared as if on fire,
crowns of nuclear leaves dotting the skyline. Professor William Lansing knew it
meant that fall had firmly arrived. Once October hit, the Connecticut
campus became festooned with brilliant yellows, deep reds, and Sunkist orange
nature. People traveled for miles to witness the foliage, rubbernecking up I-95
and flocking to nearby Devil’s Hopyard, a giant park where the students might
perform Shakespeare, or enter its forest gates at nighttime to get high and
wild. William had taken a meandering hike through its labyrinthine trails that
morning before his seminar on Existential Ethics in Literature. It had been
over a decade since he’d entered its tree-lined arms, but today, the very day
he was reaching the part in his long-gestating novel that took place in Devil’s
Hopyard, seemed like a fitting time to return.

His wife
Laura hadn’t stirred when he left at dawn. He slipped out of bed and closed the
mystery novel propped open on her snoring chest. He often wrote early in the
mornings. Before the world awoke, he’d arm himself with a steaming coffee and a
buzzing laptop, the wind from off the Connecticut River
pinching his cheeks. His chirping backyard would become a den of inspiration,
or he’d luxuriate in the silence of Bentley at six
a.m. when the only sound might be a student or two trundling down
the Green to sleep off a fueled night of debauchery.

He’d been
at Bentley for over twenty years, tenured and always next in line to be
department chair. He refused even the notion of the position for fear it might
eat into time spent writing his opus. His colleagues understood this mad
devotion. They too had their sights set on publications, most of them well
regarded in journals, only a few of them renowned beyond Bentley’s walls like
William dreamed to be. Notoriety had dazzled him since he was a child—a time
when his world seemed small and lifeless and dreams of fame were his only
escape.

His
colleagues often questioned him about this elusive manuscript he’d been toiling
on for years, but he found it best to remain tight-lipped, to entice mystery. It
was how he ran his classroom as well, letting only a few chosen students get
close, keeping the rest at enough of a distance to regard him as tough and
impenetrable but fair. Maybe he’d made a few students cry when a paper they
stayed up all night to finish received a failing grade, or when his slashes of
red pen seemed to consume one of their essays on Sartre’s Nausea, which he found trite and
pedestrian; but that only made them
want to do better the next time. They understood that he wanted his kingdom to
be based on fear, for creativity soared in times of distress.

William’s
legs were sore after his hike that morning through Devil’s Hopyard. The terrain
was hilly and its jagged trails would challenge even a younger man, but he kept
fit, wearing his fifty-five year old frame well. He was an athlete back in
school, a runner and a boxer who still kept a punching bag in the basement and
ended his day with a brisk run through his town of Killingworth,
a blue-collar suburban enclave surrounding Bentley’s college-on-a-hill. He had
all his hair, which was more than he could say for most of his peers, even
though silver streaks now cut through the brown. He secretly believed this made
him more dashing than during his youth. Women twenty years younger still gave
him a second glance, and he often found Laura taking his hand at department
functions and squeezing it tight, as if to indicate that she fully claimed him and there’d be no chance for even the most
innocent of flirtations. He had a closet full of blazers with elbow patches and
never wore ties so he could keep his collar open and expose his chest hair,
which hadn’t turned white yet. He had a handsome and regal face, well
proportioned, and while his eyes drooped some due to a lifetime of battling
insomnia, it gave him the well-worn look of being entirely too busy to sleep.
People often spoke of him as a soul who never enjoyed being idle, someone who
was always moving, expounding, and expanding.

“Hi,
Professor Lansing,” said Nathaniel, a tall and gangly freshman, who after three
weeks into the semester had yet to look William in the eye. Nathaniel’s legs
twisted over one another with each step. William guessed that the boy had
recently grown into his pole-like body and his brain now struggled with how to
move it properly.

“Nathaniel,”
William said, wiping the sweat mustache from his top lip. He could smell his
own lemony perspiration from the intense jaunt through Devil’s Hopyard. “How
did your paper on The Stranger turn
out?”

Nathaniel’s
eyes seemed to avoid him even more. They became intent on taking in the
colorful foliage, as if it had sprouted overnight.

“Well…” the
boy began, still a hair away from puberty, his voice hitting a high octave,
“I’m not totally sure what you meant about Meursault meeting his end because he
didn’t ‘play the game’.”

William
responded with a throaty laugh and a shake of his head. He placed a palm on
Nathaniel’s shoulder.

“Society’s
game, Nathaniel, the dos and don’ts we all must ascribe to. How, even if we
slip on occasion, we’re not supposed to admit what we did for fear of being
condemned. Right?”

Nathaniel
nodded, his rather large Adam’s apple bobbing up and down in agreement too. He
stuffed a bitten-down nail between his chapped lips and chewed away like a rat,
leaving William to wonder if the boy was on some new-fangled type of speed. He
liked Nathaniel, who barely spoke in class, but once in a while would give a
nervous peep filled with promise. The students he paid the most attention to
weren’t the heads of the lacrosse team or the stars of the theater productions,
those students would have a million other mentors fawning over them. He looked
for the hidden jewels, the ones who were waiting for that extra push, who’d
been passed over their whole lives but would someday excel past their peers.
Then they would thank him wholeheartedly for igniting a spark.

“Is that
why Camus didn’t personalize the victim that Meursault killed?” Nathaniel
asked, wary at first, as the two entered the doors of Fanning Hall past a swirl
of other students. “So we sympathize with him despite his crime?”

William
stopped in front of his classroom, its cloudy window offering a haze of
students settling into their desks. He stood blocking the door so Nathaniel had
no choice but to look in his eyes.

William led
the boy into the room. The students immediately became hushed and rigid as he
entered.

Nathaniel
slumped into a chair in the back while Kelsey cut off another girl to get a
prime seat up front.

William
placed his leather satchel on the table, took out a red marker, and scribbled
on the board, I didn’t know what a sin
was. The handwriting looked like chicken scratch and the students had to
squint a bit to decipher it; but eventually the entire class of twenty managed
to correctly jot down the quote. They had gotten used to his idiosyncrasies.

“At the end
of the novel, Meursault ponders that he didn’t know what a sin was,” William
said. “What does that mean?”

A quarter
of the class raised their hands, each one eager to be noticed. Kelsey clicked
her tongue for attention, as if her desperation wasn’t obvious enough. She
looked like she had to pee. In the back, Nathaniel was fully absorbed in a
doodle that resembled Piglet from Winnie the Pooh.

“Nathaniel,”
William barked, sending the pen flying out of the boy’s hand. Nathaniel weaved
his long arms around the desk to pick up the pen and then gave a slack-jawed
expression as a response.

“Why does Meursault insist to the
chaplain that he didn’t know what a sin was?” William continued.

Nathaniel
silently pleaded for William to call on someone else. He let out an
“uuuhhhhhhh” that lasted through endless awkward seconds.

Kelsey took
it upon herself to chime in.

“Professor,
while Meursault understands he’s been found guilty for his crime, he doesn’t
truly see that what he did was wrong.”

William
turned toward Kelsey to admonish her for speaking without being called on, a
nasty habit that happened more and more with this ADD-addled generation than
the prior one, but a red-leaf tree outside the window captured his attention
instead, its color so unreal, so absorbing. The red so vibrant like its leaves
had been painted with blood.

“Professor…professor.”

The sound
came from far away, as if hidden under the earth, screaming to be acknowledged.

“Professor
Lansing?”

Kelsey
waved her arm in his direction, grounding him. She gave a pout.

“Like, am I
right, or what, Professor? He doesn’t truly see
that what he did was wrong.”

William
cleared his throat, maintaining control over the room. He smiled at them the
same way he would for a photograph.

“Yes,
that’s true, Kelsey. Expressing remorse would constitute his actions as wrong.
He knows his views make him a stranger to society, and he is content with this
judgment. He accepts death and looks forward to it with peace. The crowds will
cheer hatefully at his beheading, but they will
be cheering. This is what captivates the readers almost seventy years after the
book’s publication. What keeps it and Camus eternal, immortal.”

Kelsey
beamed at the class, her grin smug as ever.

William
went to the board, erased the quote, and replaced it with the word IMMORTAL in big block letters, this time
written with the utmost perfect penmanship.

Lee Matthew Goldberg’s novel THE
MENTOR is forthcoming from Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press in June
2017 and has been acquired by Macmillan Entertainment. The French edition will
be published by Editions Hugo. His debut novel SLOW DOWN is out now. His pilot
JOIN US was a finalist in Script Pipeline’s TV Writing Competition. After graduating
with an MFA from the New School,
his fiction has also appeared in The Montreal Review, The Adirondack Review, Essays & Fictions, The New Plains Review, Verdad Magazine,BlazeVOX, and
others. He is the co-curator of The
Guerrilla Lit Reading Series. He lives in New York
City.